Will focus on away ties: Kohli

Back in Bangalore after a pretty average outing in the UAE, Virat Kohli, the Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper said his team will focus on winning as many away ties as possible in order to qualify for the knock-out phase of the tournament.

Speaking to reporters in Bangalore on the eve of their first home match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kohli said the focus was more on winning away games as it was those matches that cost his team a place in the knock-outs last season.

"It is the away games we are focusing on more than how many to play here at home. We are quite familiar with what we need to do in Bangalore, but last year our drawback was we did not win away games and we could not qualify", he told reporters on the eve of the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

With just two wins and three losses during the UAE leg of the tournament, Bangalore need to pull-up their socks if they are to entertain hopes of making it to the next phase of the tournament. Kohli agreed his team needs to get back to winning ways, but also said there would have been no complacency on their part even if they had managed a 100% winning record in the UAE.

"We take this as a fresh start in the IPL even if we had won five games out of five in the UAE leg", he said.

Replying to a query, Kohli said losing a match should not let a team drift away from its ultimate goal. "Losing should hurt but it should not annoy you to make you drift away from what you have to do on the field", he said.

Bangalore have lost their last three matches, but the skipper asked his team not to panic, adding that it was the responsibility of himself and the rest of the support staff to instil confidence in the players.

"If you panic, then the guys will obviously scatter and not play together as a unit. I have gone through it before. The best way out of this is to stay relaxed and focus on holding on to the momentum", he said.

The number three batsman conceded that the loss against Kolkata hurt them the most, as it came after Bangalore looked well-set for victory. "The one we lost to KKR hurt the most because the other two games we did not play good cricket. We did not deserve to win those, to be honest.

"It is good we lost it is like wake up call. It helped us rectify our mistakes", he added.